The Princess of the School | Page 2

can. Don't suppose the train will be full, as
it's so early. I thought you were coming with us, Bertha, but Miss
Hardy says you're not!"
"Dad changed his mind at the last minute, and promised to send the car
to fetch me. It's only forty miles by road, you know, though it takes
hours by the train. He seemed to think I should lose either myself or my
luggage at Sheasby Junction, and it is a horrid place to change. You
never can get hold of a porter, and you don't know which platform
you'll start from."
"How are you going home, Lilias?" asked Noreen, who with several
other girls had joined the group at the fire.
Lilias, squatting on the fender, stretching two cold hands towards the
blazing sticks, looked up brightly.
"We're riding! Astley and Elton are to fetch Rajah and Peri over for us.
Grandfather said they needed exercise. I don't suppose he'd have
thought of it, only Dulcie wrote to Cousin Clare and begged her to ask
him. Won't it be just splendiferous? We haven't had a ride the whole
term, and I'm pining to see Rajah!"
"Grandfather had promised to let us ride to school in September," put in
Dulcie, "but Everard and a friend of his commandeered the horses and
went to Rasebury, so we couldn't have them, and we were so
disappointed. I do hope nothing will happen to stop them this time!
Everard was to arrive home yesterday, so he'll be before us. I shan't
ever be friends with him again if he plays us such a mean trick!"

"It's 'coach--carriage--wheelbarrow--truck,' it seems to me, the way
we're all trotting home!" laughed Edith. "If I could have my choice, I'd
sprint on a scooter!"
"Next term we'll travel by private aeroplane, specially chartered!"
scoffed Noreen.
"I don't mind how I go, so long as I get off somehow!" chirped Truie.
"Thank goodness, here come the urns at last! I began to think breakfast
would never be ready. We want to have time to eat something before
we start."
Miss Walters' excellent arrangements had left ample time for the
healthy young appetites to be satisfied before the taxis arrived at the
door to convey the first contingent of pupils to the station. Sixteen girls,
under the escort of a mistress, took their departure in the highest of
spirits, packed as tightly as sardines, but managing to wave good-bys.
Their boxes had been dispatched the previous day, their hand-bags had
gone on by cart before breakfast and would be waiting for them at the
station, where Jones, that most useful factotum, would, by special
arrangement with the station-master, be taking their tickets before the
ordinary opening of the booking-office.
Though the departure of sixteen girls made somewhat of a clearance at
Chilcombe Hall, Miss Walters' labors were not yet over. There was a
train at eight and a train at ten, and the young people who had to wait
for these found it difficult to know how to employ the interval until it
was their turn to enter the taxis. By nine o'clock Lilias and Dulcie,
ready in their riding habits, were looking eagerly out of the dining-hall
window along the drive which led to the gate.
"I know Elton would be early," said Dulcie. "It's always Astley who
stops and fusses. It was the same when Everard went cub-hunting. You
don't think there's a hitch, do you?" (uneasily). "Shall we get a horrid
yellow envelope and a message to say 'Come by train'? It would be too
bad, and yet, it's as likely as not!"
Dulcie's fears, which in the course of twenty minutes' waiting and

watching had almost conjured up the telegraph boy with his scarlet
bicycle and brown leather wallet, were suddenly dispelled, however, by
a brisk sound of trotting, and a moment later appeared the welcome
sight of her grandfather's two grooms riding up to the house, each
leading a spare horse by the rein. Those schoolfellows who had not yet
departed to the station came to the door to witness the interesting start.
A sleek, well-groomed horse is always a beautiful object, and the girls
decided unanimously that Lilias and Dulcie were lucky to be carried
home in so delightful a fashion. They watched them admiringly as they
mounted. Edith stroked Rajah's smooth neck as she said good-by to her
friends.
"Riding beats motoring in my opinion," she vouchsafed, "though of
course you can go farther in a car. Perhaps I shall pass you on the
road."
"No, you won't, for we're taking a short cut across country. We always
choose by-lanes if we can. Write and tell me if you get a motor-scooter.
They sound fearfully thrillsome. Good-by, see you again in January!"
"Good-by! and a merry Christmas to